


Like Trees in Winter

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Enemies to Fiancés, Harry's thirst for his snakey mortal enemy, M/M, Negotiations, Nudity, Second War with Voldemort, Serpentine Voldemort, Voldemort has no chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-06-01 00:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15131042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Peace has never been so attractive.





	Like Trees in Winter

**Author's Note:**

> #50, “Why does anyone have to be naked?” 
> 
> Prompted by anonymous on tumblr.

“Why does anyone have to be naked?” Harry asks no one in particular, his arms crossed in an unconsciously protective motion even though he’s still dressed in two layers of clothes.

His gaze is set on the Forbidden Forest. There’s no motion in his line of sight; the Order’s recon team had returned four minutes ago and the casting team is already chanting the perimeter spell. Harry feels useless standing on the sidelines. He knows full well that he can’t be a part of either group—his magic has to stay out of the area until the casting has already been set—but it grates at him to stand around doing nothing. He may be the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, but he doesn’t have Dumbledore’s distant hand.

Harry took control of the Order after Dumbledore’s death, the prophecy currying him favor when his age did not, and in the six years of war since then he had proven himself to be able to keep up against Voldemort. But it was all he could do; neither he nor Voldemort had been able to keep an upper hand in this war. Harry was sick of it. It wouldn’t surprise him if Voldemort was, too.

Next to him, Hermione keeps one ear on their circle of seven’s pronunciation and the other on Harry’s words. “Standard practice to make sure participants aren’t hiding any runes on their bodies. Or it used to be standard practice, anyway. The Ritual of Truce hasn’t been used in nearly two hundred years.” She whistles and the second part of the chant begins, the participants not even glancing in her direction before switching seamlessly. They’ve practiced for weeks ever since they received this bizarre offer. When Hermione turns to him again, she asks, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I am,” Harry replies. That’s never been the issue. If Voldemort is being sincere, then Harry will do his utmost to appeal to any lingering strings of humanity the man might have left. If this is a trap despite all the research they’ve done and the precautions they have taken, perhaps Harry will still be able to get a killing shot in.

“He may have insisted on this to put you off your guard and cause you discomfort.”

“I’m uncomfortable alright.” _Or he realized my secret and is taunting me,_ Harry thinks and doesn’t say. He never says it, never lets it slip through his lips unless he and Ron are alone and drunk. Hermione must be thinking of Harry’s failing now; there aren’t many explanations for that vulnerable, uncomfortable gaze of hers.

Harry squares his shoulders and pops the top button of his robes. He knows this part of the chant. Soon, it will be time for him to enter the forest. He gets through the rest of his fastenings and hands the robe to Hermione as the circle finishes their work. Immediately a white line appears on the ground and encircles the forest, meeting the line on the other end where a different circle of seven had already finished their chant. Only two can enter now, with neither wand nor intention to harm.

Someone whistles as Harry slips off his shirt. He flips them off, knowing it’s either Fred or George. Ron has seen everything before, Neville would never, Ginny’s whistle is higher-pitched, Luna would comment instead, Dean has never seemed to find him attractive.

“I don’t have to tell you to be careful,” Hermione asks more than says.

“You don’t,” Harry agrees. He removes his pants and underwear. “I won’t agree to any more than we’re able to give.”

“Any more than we’ve gone over in the meetings,” Hermione corrects.

Harry shoots her a grimace. “Just about anything is worth an end to the war. Not our lives or our freedom, but… A lot.”

Hermione dips her chin, her jaw locked. But they’ve voiced all their opinions last night, getting little sleep as their smaller group met after the meeting with the main core of the Order commenced. “Alright, I know. Just come back, alright? Whatever happens, come back to us.”

“I always do,” Harry replies. It’s as much of a promise that he can give, one based on past events. Harry has always come back. Even after the harshest battles, he’s brought himself home to Hermione and the Weasleys. What he’s never said on those worst of days is that sometimes Voldemort seems to draw the battles out on purpose for no reason Harry can discern. It’s as though he needs more time, though for what, he doesn’t know.

Harry says his goodbyes-for-now to the others and leaves with steady, even movements that don’t reflect the uncertainty in his heart. Each time he does a mission for the Order, there’s no guarantee that he will come out of it alive. But it’s not just for the Order, all of this. It’s for his friends, his former professors, the people of wizarding Britain who have stayed through bloodshed and terror because this is their home, the people outside the country’s borders who yearn to return home to a government that won’t subjugate them for their blood. It’s those people Harry fights for, not for himself, because Harry-just-Harry is tired to his bones, and the memories of his parents and Sirius are too old to truly drive him anymore. War has burned them out.

The forest is eerily empty as he walks. The casting isn’t supposed to disturb animal habitats, but it’s as though they all know they don’t want to be anywhere near a private meeting between the leaders of the light and the dark. Harry’s fingers twitch uneasily at the lack of a wand on him. The nakedness is also an issue, but embarrassment is low on his priorities. Anticipation should be as well, but Harry has faced his hard truths a long time ago. There’s no room for lying to himself in war. To others, yes, but it’s too dangerous to lie to himself.

Harry breathes out everything he feels, every stupid thought that’s been trying to worm its way into his head.

As he enters the clearing they’d agreed upon, he knows it’s futile.

Voldemort’s back is to him. Sunlight casts a glow to his too-pale skin, dark robes no longer obscuring anything from Harry’s sight.  Harry allows his gaze to linger while he still can. The curve of Voldemort’s neck, the lines of his shoulders, the lean muscles of his back, that ass, the backs of his thighs and calves. His skin is too perfect—no moles, and he’s too far away but Harry knows there won’t be freckles either—the product of ritual instead of nature. But just as Voldemort has made his marks on Harry, so has Harry responded in turn. There’s a burn from fiendfyre traveling across one of his shoulders from the time Harry had come closest to killing him. A barely noticeable silver scar on his thigh from Harry’s cutting curse. A few more, here an there. Marks of war, so few compared to Harry’s own marks.

Voldemort’s is a body made for this very war, and it shows. Harry’s own isn’t different in that respect; he was born into the first war, into the bonds of a prophecy that even now won’t let him breathe, grew up in the epicenter of the second war.

As Voldemort turns around, Harry’s eyes don’t drop below his enemy’s chin.

Harry meets those red eyes head-on, takes in the serpentine features that he’s too used to, to find horrifying. Voldemort is a monster, but he has been the monster Harry pits himself against year after year, month after month. He’s faced Voldemort a dozen times just this year. Voldemort is the monster under his bed, but Harry has seen him in the light. (His thoughts threaten to go somewhere else with himself, his enemy, and a bed, but Harry manages to breathe them out. Later, he will get shitfaced and confess to Ron the shit his friend never wants to hear but makes Harry get off his chest anyway. Later, not now, not when Harry won’t allow himself to be distracted.)

Voldemort doesn’t give Harry the same courtesy of discretion. His gaze dips down, slow and steady. When he says, “Harry Potter,” it is with a tone to his hiss that Harry doesn’t want to categorize.

“Voldemort,” Harry echoes. He will never add Voldemort’s preferred title, but neither does he call this man Tom. Tom—he is a boy long gone, the horcrux absorbed into Voldemort’s main soul when Harry had destroyed the diary. When Harry continues, he is tense despite his breathing exercises. “I’m unarmed, runes and all.” Voldemort is as likely to kill him as he is to chat. Harry can never forget it. “You can continue with your sudden and shocking betrayal now.”

“How magnanimous of you to offer,” Voldemort replies. In the corners of his eyes, Harry sees Voldemort turn his palms momentarily toward him. “As you can see, I am unarmed. As per the ritual, I intend you no harm.”

“At the moment,” Harry mutters.

Voldemort inclines his head. “At the moment.” He walks closer, stopping only a few steps away from Harry himself, until Harry has to tilt his chin just enough to continue meeting his eyes. Harry has grown into his adult height, but he will never have the monstrous, looming form of his enemy. And yet Voldemort does not seem to loom; he only stands there, his red eyes dark as he waits for some unknown sign. “Despite your suspicions, you are here. It seems the allure of peace was enough to draw you out.”

Allure. That’s a good word for it—not for peace, which Harry has never known, but for the way Voldemort’s sibilant words settle in Harry’s ears. Harry fights the urge to shiver. This is why he tries so hard to never meet Voldemort on a quiet, lonely battlefield. Ever since his attraction began, Harry has worked to stomp it down, to do the right thing. But there’s no right thing in war. There’s bad and worse, and Harry doesn’t let a shred of self-pity cling to him when he says, “You had to know I would do anything for peace.”

“You would give me your life,” Voldemort says, and it’s neither a question nor a surprise. What does surprise him is the lack of triumph in Voldemort’s eyes.

“I’d never trust you to keep your bargain.”

“The ritual would demand it so.”

It would; Hermione had made certain of the strength of the ritual.

There used to be a time when Harry would’ve said yes without reservation. He’d been a boy, but now he’s grown into a man, with a man’s pride and will to live. It would cut him deeply to make the decision, but he wouldn’t have to bear it for long. “You’d never agree to my terms and I would never lie down and die without knowing that the lives and wellbeing of every light witch and wizard and every muggleborn would be assured. You’d never bend that far.”

“Perhaps I would, if only to see you break,” Voldemort replies, and yet. Voldemort steps forward, step by step until there is so little room between them. Harry watches warily as Voldemort’s hand rises. If it becomes a blow, the ritual would boot him out and leave him magically depleted. Harry trusts in Hermione’s research enough to stand still. But Voldemort’s hand stills just above the faint white scar along Harry’s throat. “You’ve already come so close to it.”

Two months ago, that scar had been wound that nearly cost Harry his life on the battlefield when one of their own turned against them. It’s only due to Hermione’s quick thinking that got Harry out of there and the strength of magical healing that allowed him to keep his life. Had the attack been with a spell, the wound wouldn’t have healed as neatly, but it also wouldn’t have reached past Harry’s barrier. A knife, on the other hand… Harry’s lucky to still have his head. But he won’t allow Voldemort to get his hopes up. “I won’t die that easily.”

“You have proved that time and again.” On the heels of Voldemort’s surprising agreement is the way Voldemort’s long fingers finally brush over the scar. Harry steels himself—not against the touch, but against the way his body reacts to it—and hopes nothing gets through. “A simple traitor should not have come so close to succeeding where I have failed.”

Harry almost laughs. “Did it hurt your pride? What, only you are allowed to kill me?”

“Your life has been tied to mine since before you came into this world. It has _always_ been mine, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

Voldemort’s fingers trail up to rest against the underside of his chin. Harry doesn’t know why he allows it. He could so easily slap Voldemort’s hand away—or just move it, if the ritual won’t allow a slap—but instead he can’t force himself to move. That perverse part of him that catalogs the smoothness and warmth of Voldemort’s skin, it has only grown with every year, every accidental touch during battle. As Voldemort’s touch lingers, it grows and grows, and Harry will be damned for it, but he allows it. He is lost to feeling until Voldemort speaks again.

“From birth to death, you will be defined by Lord Voldemort. I will have it no other way. I agree to your terms.”

Harry should be overjoyed at the idea of peace, but all the air has left his chest. “You’re lying.”

“You have been my enemy for the entirety of your life, but I am no longer in need of an enemy. I am willing to negotiate peace. I am no longer content to build my empire on the bodies of my enemies,” Voldemort tells him, an odd certainty to his tone. He isn’t speaking to convince, nor does he seem to be trying to sway Harry to the dark as he sometimes used to. He simply speaks. “I will find a way to integrate all those who stay within Britain’s borders, whether they are blood traitors or halfbloods or mudbloods. War has reigned long enough.”

Harry takes half a step back, trying to steady himself and shake the warmth of Voldemort’s touch. It’s easy when it feels as though there’s a block of ice in his chest. “You’d have to swear an unbreakable vow. Or better, a contract, one that I’ll make sure won’t give you any loopholes.”

“My followers and your Order will see to the details,” Voldemort allows too easily. “Your role in this is simple.”

“To die,” Harry bites out. Fuck, Hermione is going to kill him before Voldemort gets the chance.

Voldemort’s gaze finally gains a hint of the triumph Harry has been waiting for. “To live,” he corrects, and watches with something like amusement when Harry falters. “Your enthusiasm in handing me your death is admirable—”

_“What—”_

“But unnecessary. I will have more from you, not less. Your pain and loss has been mine, but I tire of them. I want your triumphs and successes, your perseverance and your leadership, your power turned toward creating a new magical society instead of working against me. I want your life, not your short, measly death. I chose the wrong path all those years ago; had I swayed you to the dark, this war would have ended before it could have begun. Our fates our bound already; with a different kind of bond between of us, the prophecy will be voided.”

“You want a Class 1 bond,” Harry realizes. “It’s the only kind that might be strong enough to overpower a prophecy, one that comes with non-aggression built in.”

Voldemort inclines his head. “You can choose the kind of bond, though I know the most advantageous.”

Class 1 bonds, Harry thinks, wracking his brain. Hogwarts was five years ago, but this is later. He remembers Hermione researching bonds when they’d tried to unravel the Dark Mark as a blow to Voldemort’s forces. They’d partially succeeded, dissolving some of Voldemort’s bonds and watching the scared and regretful dark wizards scatter. The loyal ones stayed and the recruitment afterward had bolstered Voldemort’s forces, but he’d still lost some of his best fighters. Hermione’s words echo in his memory, a frown, a _till death do we part has nothing on this—_

Harry barely manages not to gape. _You’re not serious,_ he means to say, but his gaze hasn’t left Voldemort’s face for a moment since the man first turned around. He has seen every version of Voldemort, or so he’d thought. He’s seen him vicious, angry, calculating, deceitful, charming, darkly amused, and only a few moments ago, sincere, but this? This is determination and passion turned toward Harry himself, not toward killing Harry. Harry had thought his secret failure, the dark, terrible want, was his alone, but he knows now that it isn’t. It can’t be, not with the alternate path Voldemort has laid out for them. There are a few versions of Class 1 bonds, but he knows now which one Voldemort seeks. It makes no sense; it’s a bond of equality, not servitude, and Harry hates the way he wants to believe.

“I thought this had to be done on bended knee.”

“You may kneel for me if you wish,” Voldemort replies with a curve to his thin lips. “But I won’t require it. I prefer you unbroken, Harry. You have three days to decide. Do it wisely.”

Before Voldemort can turn around, Harry reaches out to grab his former enemy’s bare shoulder.

“This isn’t a decision,” Harry tells him, even though it is, because Harry has never taken long to decide on what’s important. He takes a step and finds himself closer than he’s ever been. “It’s just…”

“Inevitable,” Voldemort offers.

“Insane,” Harry counters, but he won’t run from this. Not anymore.

Voldemort’s hand is firm this time as it slides along Harry’s skin, trailing over the scar on his throat but not lingering overlong. He tilts Harry’s head up and Harry lets him, sinking into the freedom of finally allowing himself to have this. The press of Voldemort’s lips against Harry’s doesn’t solve everything that still stands between them, but it’s a glimpse of the future Voldemort spoke of. For all that Voldemort seems to be getting everything that he wants, Harry can’t call it a sacrifice on his own part. If this is the peace he’s never known, he rather likes it.

**Author's Note:**

> (AKA, the one where pre-fic Voldemort basically goes "my mortal enemy is actually mortal fuck fuck fuck" and "lemme just make sure he finds me hot before I propose like the weirdo I am".) 
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I'm @[crownwithoutstones](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/) on tumblr (new blog).


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